Metro Reco: C'mon Papa by Ryan Knighton

These days everyone knows that being a parent is hard. If we don’t know it from personal experience, there are plenty of blogs and memoirs out there to tell us so. We get it. But imagine being a blind parent. In his memoir, C’mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark Ryan Knighton candidly explains what it’s like: challenging, frustrating, terrifying, but also joyous, just like it is for parents who see.

From the moment of conception, everything is harder for a blind parent. But you have to make it work. Knighton describes his frustration at not being able to see the ultrasound, and then the magic upon hearing his baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Even learning about being a parent is harder. He wanted to read up on parenting, but there were few audio books available. Fortunately, it turned out this wasn’t a problem. He had a friend help him by reading some parenting books for dads. After hearing some of the inane advice, Knighton was glad he couldn’t see: “I was already blind, I didn’t need to become an idiot too.”

There is so much in the book I can relate to--especially thinking back to when I had my first child--the sleep deprivation, the anxiety, and inability to relax. Like Knighton, I remember pouring a much needed Guiness at the end of the day, scarcely able to enjoy it while hovering around the baby monitor turned as high as it will go, twitching at every sound. But it’s his frank descriptions of fear that stir me the most. He describes going for a walk with infant Tess strapped to his chest, trying to anticipate a million hazards, and narrowly avoiding being hit by an inattentive SUV driver. Once Tess begins to walk there are new horrors—he describes her toddling away outside, silent in the snow. I lost my daughter briefly at Winners once. Five minutes of looking for a child feels like hours for someone who can see, let alone someone who is depending on her answering his calls. There are few things more terrifying, I think.

Along with fear, Knighton tackles another subject most of us can identify with: the minefield that is parenting with a partner. Trusting your partner and sharing responsibility is no easy task, and it is no different for Knighton and his partner Tracy. But, unlike many women I know, Tracy gives Knighton the trust and responsibility he needs to become a real hands-on father. I am in awe of both of them.

C’mon Papa is inspiring, honest, funny and irreverent without falling into the “bad parent” shtick that is so overused these days. No one is a perfect parent; we want to do the best we can. But as Knighton shows, kids are resilient and flexible, and sometimes the best thing we can do is follow their lead.

Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box

I probably could have used this book a year ago when I was much more insecure about my ability to mother. In Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, author Ann Dunnewold tells us how and why to reject falling into the trap of chasing the dream of being a perfect mother and offers a new paradigm for mothering--the perfectly good mother.

The perfectly good mother is herself, not who others expect her to be, and she accepts her faults; she looks after herself, and puts her needs first sometimes; she encourages family members to take responsibility for themselves; she has fun. The perfectly good mother is human.

The book also offers helpful suggestions to help make motherhood more enjoyable and less work, such as identifying your core values and focussing your energy on activities that promote these values. It also offers simple suggestions to make life easier, like cutting back on scheduled activities (I wholeheartedly agree with this one). Dunnewold also suggests ways for women to build support systems, by dropping sanctimommy buddies in favour of like-minded, non-judgmental friends for example.

Sure, it’s common sense and some of it's simplistic and even trite, but if you’re struggling with impossibly high expectations of yourself, June Cleaver is worth reading.

Ann Dunnewold is a licensed psychologist and expert on postpartum depression and anxiety. She has raised two daughters.

I have a copy of this for the first person who emails me at metro_mama@hotmail.com!

Product Review: Boca Beth

My Spanish is limited to the words I’ve needed to order beer during vacation. So, besides “hola!”, and “gracias, amigo!” Cakes isn’t about to learn much Espanol from me. Enter Boca Beth's language program.

We sampled one of the videos, I Like Animals! When I saw the running time was 50 minutes I figured it would take us 3-4 sittings to get through it. Not so. The extremely busy Cakes actually sat, spellbound, through the whole thing. We learned monkeys are called monos in Spanish. Cakes clapped with excitement as we watched wild and domestic animals cavort on the screen. She was thrilled when several children sang songs to learn how to count in Spanish.

During the interactive part of the program, we played along with our Boca puppet (provided) while we learned the Spanish words for our body parts and the shapes.

When we grew tired of the TV, I threw on the music CD and we sang and danced some more.

We had a good time with the products and I expanded my Spanish a little bit too!

Beth Butler, the creator of the program, has spent over 10 years in preschool and elementary school classrooms. She has lived in Chile and Mexico.

Check our Boca Beth’s website to sample the products for free.

Adios amigos!

Product Review: athleticBaby Soccer!

We don’t have cable and Cakes doesn’t watch TV, but there have been days when we’ve needed a little downtime and I’ve wished I had something worthwhile she could watch. So, when I was asked if I wanted to review athleticBaby Soccer! for The Parent Bloggers, I was happy to do so.

Kids of all ages, from tots to teens, play soccer, warm up, dance, train, and have a good time. Cakes was entertained. Eddie Coker’s original music is catchy and fun--Cakes was bobbing her head and swaying her butt. More importantly, the music didn’t annoy me like most children’s music does.

Criticisms? A couple of the segments are a little too kinetic. There could be a little more ethnic diversity.

Overall, I like it. It encourages activity (we played along with a couple of balls) unlike those awful videos (that shall remain nameless) of toys being manipulated by eerily disembodied limbs. It’s a great introduction to the sport of soccer.

The video emphasizes the joy of sport; there was no emphasis on winning (except, perhaps, one image of a child waving a trophy).

I also like the fact that the company’s founder and CEO, Karen Foster, is a mother of three who founded athleticBaby with the goal of promoting physical activity to children. Soccer! is the fifth instalment in the series which includes Walk, Run and Play, Golf, Basketball, and athelticBaby All-Star.

All in all, thumbs up. However, I won’t be buying a Hockey! version. I plan to encourage sports selectively: I can picture myself on a sunny summer afternoon, sitting by the soccer field on my folding chair with a cold one in my stainless steel coffee mug. I cannot picture myself sitting in a cold ice rink at five am on a Sunday morning.

Find out more about the athleticBaby series at www.athleticbaby.com.